A New Start
by unforgetabELLE
Summary: Marinette stared down in disbelief, struck motionless by the object in her hand. Something meaningless turned precious in the blink of an eye. She almost hadn't bought it, thinking she was just stressed...crazy...imagining things. It seemed wasteful. A waste of plastic. Was it even recyclable? She didn't even know! Clearly she was not ready for this responsibility. Was it too soon?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is part of a series. The other stories are not necessary to understanding this one, but helpful! Read "Not the Fairytale we Planned", "His Mother's Ring", and "You had one job, Plagg!" first!**

* * *

Marinette stared down in disbelief, struck motionless by the object in her hand. Something meaningless turned precious in the blink of an eye. She almost hadn't bought it, thinking she was just stressed...crazy...imagining things. It seemed wasteful. A waste of plastic. Was it even recyclable? She didn't even know! Clearly she was not ready for this responsibility. Was it too soon? She didn't feel prepared. What if she was horrible at it?

Her mind started to spiral and her knees gave out. She caught herself on the edge of the bathtub and sat there. Setting the pregnancy test on the closed toilet seat, she closed her eyes and tried to regulate her breathing. Then she imagined his face.

_Adrien when she tells him the news, shock morphing into exuberance as he picks her up and swings her in a circle...Adrien singing in his horribly off-tune voice to her growing stomach...Adrien disheveled from lack of sleep, rocking a baby in a sunny-yellow nursery...Adrien zooming a spoon like an airplane into the giggling mouth of a baby, pureed carrots somehow smeared across his smiling face...Adrien effortlessly braiding their daughter's hair on her first day of school, the two singing along for the millionth time to a child's song...Adrien shouting on the sidelines of her soccer game, pride in his eyes as she falls but gets right back up again… Adrien shopping for prom dresses with the keen eye of a fashion mogul's son and spending an obscene amount of money on the one that is just perfect...Adrien clapping and cheering louder than anyone could imagine as she walks across the stage and accepts her university diploma...Adrien, gray and distinguished, walking their daughter down the aisle, tears in his eyes as his lips linger lovingly on her forehead before giving her away…_

She opened her eyes and looked back down at the stick, her hands coming to rest on her still-flat abdomen and her breathing normalizing again. _She_ may not know if she could handle this, but together, _they_ could.

"Marinette?" She looked up to see Tikki's head peeking through the bathroom door. Her eyes immediately on her chosen's face, trying to decipher the riot of emotions there, until Tikki's gaze fell to the test in front of her and tears spring to her eyes.

"Marinette?" Tikki asked again, her tone irrevocably changed as she regarded her girl with shining eyes.

"I'm pregnant, Tikki," Marinette said out loud for the first time, her voice shaky with disbelief but lips turning into a hesitant smile. She watched through a watery gaze herself as Tikki pummeled into her face, the two laughing joyously at the wonderful news.

Tikki floated back, her face glowing with excitement as she bobbed in the air.

"You're going to be a marvelous mother, Marinette."

"You really think so?" Marinette let her insecurity infuse her tone, looking at her friend with a worried gaze.

"Of course! Is that what you've been doing in here so long? Quietly panicking?" Tikki fixed her with her all-knowing gaze and Marinette just grimaced in response. Her kwami rolled her eyes, affectionately tugging a strand of Marinette's hair.

"Okay, up, up! We need to go tell Adrien!"

"What, now?" Marinette laughed, her own excitement building at Tikki's response. "He's on patrol," she reminded her friend, remembering Adrien's strict orders to stay home and rest when she mentioned feeling a bit queasy earlier that night.

"So, _find him_," Tikki emphasized her words. "Let _him_ tell you what an amazing mother you will be instead of silently stewing here in a pot of irrational fears."

"I'm not _stewing_," Marinette muttered, letting Tikki pull her out into the living room. Her kwami just gave her a sarcastic look and Marinette sighed.

"Okay, okay, fine. You win," she acquiesced and Tikki smiled triumphantly. "Tikki, spots on!"

Sparing a moment to glance out their back window-to make sure no one had decided today to start taking in the sights of the back alley-Ladybug confirmed the the coast was clear before lassoing the chimney of the adjacent building and pulling herself up to roof. She broke out into a sprint immediately. Even all these years later, there was nothing quite like the feeling of running full-speed across the rooftops of her city. Feet light and wind in her hair, she craved the burn in her muscles as she pushed them to their enhanced, miraculous limit.

She wondered how this would change. She knew enough to not think that she would have to stop her patrols completely. Exercise wouldn't affect the baby, although the citizens of Paris might be shocked to see a pregnant Ladybug swinging along the Parisian cityscape. She'd have to back off from any dangerous situations for a while, but Chat was more than capable of handling akuma victims, and she could be close by to cleanse them. Maybe Fu even had some ideas about what to do. This couldn't be the first time a miraculous holder needed to take a brief hiatus.

Except, it wouldn't exactly be brief. Newborns took a lot of time and effort too, and it wasn't like they could call a babysitter every time an akuma appeared. Not only would that look suspicious, but the pesky butterflies had a habit of picking the most inconvenient times to appear. Maybe if they lived closer to her parents…

Ladybug mind was still negotiating internally with herself when the din finally reached her; the unmistakable sound of a battle far too familiar to her ears. She ran faster, reaching the clearing and spotting Chat in no time, but this was different from any battle she'd seen before.

The streets were clear on the late summer night, no civilians even hovering at the edge of the fight to watch, and when Marinette finally recognized Chat's opponent, she understood why. He wasn't battling just another akuma. He was battling Hawkmoth himself, and as she watched him block his assailant's parries, always on the defensive, Ladybug realized something worse.

Chat was losing.

* * *

Chat could concentrate on nothing other than the adrenaline that coursed through his entire body and he cursed himself for allowing the whim of nostalgia that brought him to this moment. With Marinette ill, and him patrolling along for the first time in recent memory, Chat found himself tracing an old familiar route from his first years as Chat, which inevitably took him by his childhood home. It had been four years since he'd seen his father last. After their falling out over his mother's ring, Adrien never saw Gabriel again. He received an unfeeling card every birthday, and Gabriel had sent a gift and note to the wedding, but other than in fashion magazines, his own father's face had become a relic of the past. So, as he vaulted past the austere stone house, Chat couldn't help but take a quick look.

Maybe it was curiosity or some lingering nostalgia for a time when the house had held some joy, but Chat found himself hopping the fence and taking in his old surroundings with the strange disjointed view of his older self. Approaching the house from a completely different angle than he ever had before, his gaze caught a flash of purple light from the rose window at the rear of the property. _Strange_, he thought, how you could live somewhere for so long and completely miss design elements. Chat must've noticed that window before, but he couldn't conjure it up in his memory. He supposed he'd spent so many years trying to escape this place, he'd never really gotten to know his own home.

Movement in the window caught his eye again, and Chat couldn't help but give into his curiosity, scaling the large plane tree in the back yard until he had a clear view into the window.

What he saw there changed everything.

The man on the other side of the window stood in the center of the barren room, framed dramatically in the light of the moon through the ornately shaped glass. His eyes were immediately on Chat.

Whether it was the movement in the tree or his glowing green eyes that gave him away, Chat didn't know, and he didn't stay to find out, jumping from the tree and vaulting as far away as he possibly could. When he reached a small empty plaza on the edge of the arrondissement where he currently lived, he finally stopped, mind reeling with what his eyes just witnessed.

That's where his father found him

Chat didn't know how long he'd stood in that empty plaza, but when Hawkmoth appeared, he finally began to function again, the rage pouring through his body.

"How _could_ you!" Chat spat, fists clenched and eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

Hawkmoth didn't even flinch at the venom in his voice, though his eyebrow quirked in consideration, studying Chat like an interesting specimen.

"I suspected this years ago," he intoned finally, hands resting casually together on his cane in front of him. "I thought I had disproved my theroy of you being Chat, but I should have known when I saw that ring on your finger. Apparently, my affection clouded my judgement."

"_Affection_," Chat repeated, rage giving way to pure disbelief. "You can't be serious."

Hawkmoth sighed in exasperation.

"I'm not in the mood for one of your tantrums, son."

"No," Chat raised a hand, his mind finally clear. Resolve infusing in him as he regarded the man in front of him anew. This wasn't his father. Not anymore. He'd made that choice long ago for both of them, and while it stung to know his father had been the antagonist of his entire life, it also filled him with pity. What must his father's existence truly be like?

"No," Chat repeated. "This isn't about us. This is about your actions for the last decade, and it ends now."

He took a step towards the man who was his father and held out his hand.

"Give me the miraculous, Gabriel."

Hawkmoth's eyes narrowed slightly as he appraised the man in front of him but made no move to surrender.

"I did this for us," he finally said, his voice taking on an unfamiliar soft tone, and Chat steeled his will against the explanation he knew would follow. "For our family. This was the only way to save us."

"It's too late-"

"To save your mother."

Hawkmoth's words stopped Chat's next words, but he refused to let himself be taunted with the impossible. His father was clearly unwell. This man had unknowingly and then knowingly put his own child in direct danger of akumas for years, and now he expected that same son to believe it had all been for him? For their family? Chat just shook his head sadly.

"Maman is dead," he replied.

"Not forever," Hawkmoth finally took a step towards him, an unnatural gleam in his eye. "I just don't have the power yet, but with your miraculous-"

"Hawkmoth-"

"-and Ladybug's, I'll be able to perform the ritual-"

"Gabriel-"

"I've preserved her for years, _planned_ for _years-"_

"Father!" Chat finally shouted, bringing his mad ramblings to an end. The shell of his father looked at him again, confusion coloring his expression when he didn't find his own excitement reflected on his son's face.

"Adrien, she's not missing, that's just what I told everyone. I can bring her back."

"No," Chat shook his head, voice strained as he pushed past the pain of the final confirmation that his mother was truly dead. "No, you can't"

"I can."

"You won't," Chat amended. "It's not natural, and she wouldn't have wanted it. I won't allow it."

"Allow it?" He hissed in return. Hawkmoth's eyes morphed, tilting dangerously in a split second, and Chat finally realized just how broken his father had become.

"Give me your miraculous, father."

"You think you can command me?" he laughed, shaking his head erratically. "You've always been an insolent-"

"Gabriel-"

"MY NAME IS HAWKMOTH," he shouted with abandon. "And this ends _now_."


	2. Chapter 2

Chat didn't even see the throwing star coming. Having fought Hawkmoth for over a decade, he thought he knew all of the villain's tricks, but that was before, when he was fighting off the man's lackeys. In one-on-one combat, Hawkmoth had no time to conjure up an akumatized victim. That hardly slowed him down.

As he fought against his father and tried to get close enough to the miraculous clipped at Hawkmoth's neck, Chat quickly found out that his talent and skill in battle was parried, cane against pole like makeshift fencers, and Chat was finally grateful that his father forced him into fencing for so many years. With that training, along with his years as Chat Noir, he was holding his own, but he lacked strategy. It had always been his weak spot, and why he and Ladybug made such an excellent team. She made up for where he faltered, and he she. But currently, Chat didn't have a spare moment to call for backup, and the man across from him was not suffering from any similar qualms. What Gabriel may have lacked in speed due to age, he more than made up for in cunning, as he seemed to anticipate his son's every move.

That was the worst part: Hawkmoth could read Chat like an open book. Of the few and far-between sentimental moments he shared with his father during his childhood, Gabriel would often remark how similar he was to his mother.

"_Your expression,_" he had always said. "_Your expressions are so similar to hers."_

Chat always held on to those words as one of the few fond memories he held of his father, but he saw now that that shred of sentimentality might just be his undoing. Chat took one misstep, and Hawkmoth pounced. Belatedly, he realized he'd been backed against a wall, and Hawkmoth unsheathed the knife hidden in his cane with a flourish, positioning it flush against Chat's neck.

"Your miraculous," he stated, little emotion coloring his voice despite his apparent victory. "Son."

Chat stared at him, trying to find some semblance of the man who was his blood. He clenched his fists fast, prepared to fight to the end, when his ears twitched to attention, picking up one of the most familiar and beautiful sounds to him. One look at Hawkmoth's face told him the man had yet to notice the telltale metallic scrape of her yoyo or the quiet thud of her landing, and Chat forced himself to hold his father's eyes lest he give away her location.

"Never," he seethed back, finally responding to Hawkmoth's demand just as he saw Ladybug's yoyo wrap around the villain's waist. The man's eyes momentarily widened as Ladybug pulled him away from Chat, giving him just enough distance to break free. As Hawkmoth stumbled backward, Ladybug released him just long enough to get a better hold on him, this time lassoing him around the biceps and pinning his arms securely to his sides.

Chat shook out his shoulders as he watched his father, his longtime-foe, struggle against his partner's unbreakable hold and pursed his lips. So this was how it ended.

"Stop fighting," he spoke softly, watching as Hawkmoth's eyes shot towards the knife he'd dropped at Ladybug's arrival. Chat sighed, kicking the implement far enough away so the possibility became non-existent. Even restrained, he wouldn't give up. Chat shouldn't have expected anything less. "If you ever cared about me, the least you could do is not make this harder than it needs to be."

"_If I ever cared?"_ The man who was his father spat vehemently. "You've always been an ungrateful child, Adrien."

Momentarily distracted by the pure venom in his eyes, Chat almost missed the flick of his hand as he released the last of his throwing stars, cleverly concealed in some hidden sleeve pocket. Unencumbered, and adrenaline still rushing from their fight, Chat's reflexes kicked in easily as he dodged the flying missile. He had begun to sigh in exasperation, ready to end this when a gasp that echoed a few meters away alerted him that his wife had been less fortunate.

His eyes instantly found Ladybug just as her yoyo dropped from her grasp. He watched motionless as her hands moved to clutch her abdomen, the torn fabric of her suit was already soaked through with blood. His next movements existed in that temporal space where time seemed to pass at double- speed, yet still in slow motion.

Hawkmoth broke free of his restraints, but not a moment elapsed to allow triumph to take over before Chat's fist pummeled his face, knocking the man out cold with a single blow. His hand grabbed at his collar, tearing the miraculous off his shirt and rendering him helpless, all as his body continued to move past the man and towards his wife who shakily stood still too far away from him.

He reached her side just as her legs gave out, his arm cradling her to him as his free hand increased the pressure she was already exerting on her abdomen.

"Adrien," she breathed out, horror evident in her voice.

"Shh, Mari, it's okay," he soothed. "We'll get you to the hospital. You'll be alright."

"No, Adrien," she insisted, one hand moving from her side to grip his collar. "The baby."

* * *

She watched his eyes widen in shock for only a moment before her partner sprung into action. An instant later, she was in Chat's arms and he was valuting them onto the roofs. She held on securely, gritting against the pain and dizziness as she wrapped her legs around his waist to try and free up his movement as he frantically carried her across rooftops and towards the hospital. Never in her life had they moved so fast. Whether it was time seeming to escape her as she fought to remain conscious or some miraculous burst of speed on her husband's part, Marinette would never know. All she remembered was she blinked and suddenly they were dropping down into an alley next to the hospital. It lit up in the glow of their combined colors, and she caught a single glimpse of Tikki's worried face before her eyelids slid shut to the sound of Adrien's shouts for help.

* * *

Adrien had not taken his eyes off Marinette in what felt like hours. Even though the clock assured him no more than 30 minutes had passed, he had no plans to leave her side until she opened her eyes again.

It was a mild case of shock, the doctor had said. Thankfully, the "mugger" had horrible aim and while the wound was deep, it was clean and the muscle would stitch back nicely.

"No where near the baby," she had assured him. "Don't worry, dad."

He didn't respond as she and the nurse left the room, his heart constricting in his chest.

_Dad_.

He was going to be a father.

The joyful news warred in his bruised heart with that night's still raw revelations and actions of his own father, but as Adrien looked at the woman in the bed before him, he felt himself start to heal. The slight anxiety that arrived with the news that he would soon be a father- would soon be responsible for the physical and _emotional_, rearing and well-being of another life- was overwhelmed with the joy that was the knowledge of who that being's mother was.

Marinette was the balm that soothed his worries, because even though he didn't know how to be a father, he knew how to love Marinette. And loving this baby, an extension of her-of them-already came as easy to him as breathing. He may not have had the best model on how to be a father, but he did on how to love. His mother, his wife, his friends, his in-laws… His family. With them, this baby would never for a moment wonder what it was to be loved.

As for figuring out how to parent, it would be a first for them both. Together, they would make their own way.

She just needed to wake up first.

As if on cue, Marinette's lashes started to flutter against her cheek, and he squeezed her hand lightly in his, leaning closer to make sure his face was the first thing she saw.

"Hey, Bugaboo," his whisper was hoarse as he reached up to brush the bangs off her brow. Marinette's eyes blinked slowly, nose crinkling adorably as consciousness slowly returned to her. Her memories of the night weren't far behind, and her hand immediately flew to her stomach as her eyes sought out his.

"You're fine," he was quick to assure her, his voice hitching on his next words. "You both are."

He saw her sink back into the bed then, the panic draining from her body as her eyes softened.

"How long have you known?"

"You don't remember telling me?"

"I…" she squinted, as if trying to spot the memories somewhere in the distance before shaking her head.

"You told me right after- just before we left that plaza," Adrien changed course, determined to focus on the good. "So about 2 hours and some change."

She squeezed his hand still holding hers, piecing together the words he couldn't bring himself to say.

"I was coming to tell you," she continued. "I imagined a slightly different reveal."

"Less dramatic?" He guessed, but she only snorted at him.

"God no! Have you met _you_?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, but Adrien couldn't keep the smile off his face. He was just so relieved to hear her laughing. To hear her happy and safe.

"Maybe a little less bloody," she allowed when her giggles had subsided, and regarded him with a sad smile.

"Mari," he began, forcing himself to continue even as his throat choked on the words that came next. "If anything had happened to you-to the baby-I-"

"Shh, I know, chaton," she placed a hand against his cheek and Adrien leaned into the warmth greedily.

"How will we-with the baby-how…"

"I've had about as much time to process it all as you, and I just don't know," she answered when he'd trailed off, unable to voice the words though he knew they needed to be said. There was so much to consider. How could he have a baby and be Chat Noir? Was it even safe for Marinette to transform pregnant? What would they do when the baby came? They couldn't leave at the drop of a hat anymore, not both of them, and they were only their strongest together…

Marinette brushed her thumb against his cheekbone, bringing him back to the present with a knowing smile.

"What I do know is how happy I am," she continued and Adrien felt the first real smile spread across his face all night.

"We need to talk, but not now. Nothing needs to be decided today, right guys?" Marinette looked down towards their joined hands and Adrien followed her gaze to see Plagg and Tikki peeking out from beneath the thin hospital blanket.

"Nothing except what kind of cheese we're going to celebrate with," Plagg corrected, lifting from his hidden location with his signature smirk. Adrien felt his shoulders relax as Plagg's words lifted the moment out of its melancholy. Tonight was for celebrations, of family, whether they be human or ancient god-like beings. And although the news meant the day they had to part loomed a bit closer, they were still together now. The people he loved most were all in one room, and they were multiplying by the second.

* * *

Tikki looked at Plagg, her partner's face spreading into a rare soft smile as he caught her eye, but she couldn't ignore the sadness there too. The same ache reflected in her own heart, and she knew immediately that their thoughts were the same.

It wouldn't be long now. Hawkmoth may be defeated, but there was still an imbalance in the universe, there were still battles to be fought, and the change was inevitable.

There was a reason they never stayed too long with any one holder. That much power, for too long...it tore at a person's very core, draining them or making them crazed. Tonight, seeing the state of Gabriel Agreste, reminded Tikki all too well of that truth. As much as she tried to ignore the thought of leaving Marinette, the time was coming.

She needed to savor every moment they had left, but the storm was still off in the distance. Now was a time to celebrate a new life. A new start.


End file.
